Acquiring top talent for the company is a goal that many hiring managers have as they hire, but how is it accomplished? If this is an important thing to you, you will need to develop a talent acquisition strategy for your team in order to ensure that you are tapping into the talent pools that will meet your company’s needs. Beyond that, finding talented people for your team is about more than getting them to apply. Truly talented individuals will want to work for a company that provides benefits that employees really want and stands behind their promises. In 2023, employees are looking for more than the usual benefits, seeking jobs where they can also have flexible work hours and the option for four-day work weeks, remote work arrangements, training opportunities, and more specialized benefits depending on the role and company. Check out our article on what qualities to look for in talent that will stick around!

When interviewing any candidates, utilizing interview intelligence software can help streamline the process and make it flow more smoothly. Interview intelligence software, like the program offered by Pillar, can provide interviewers with a better structure to work from. It is important in the interview to not only gather information about the candidate but also to sell your company. When it comes to acquiring top talent, the benefits must really be sold. After all, top talent usually has multiple employment options, so your offer has to be competitive. 

What is a good talent acquisition strategy example? Some companies who are looking to add top talent will have to perform complete overhauls to ensure that their company has what it needs to maintain top talent and have strong employee retention. For example, creating a quality employee experience is the first step to attracting top talent. This is not something that you can “pretend.” A company that wants to retain employees has to make sure that employees have a genuinely positive employment experience, the benefits and perks that they most want, and the ability to express their needs and feel that they will be acknowledged by their supervisors. Another talent acquisition strategy that can work is enacting an employee referral program. Employees will generally not refer employees they don’t have some level of rapport or trust with as they feel they will be held responsible for that person’s performance, to a point. Offering a bonus strategy for employee referrals could also provide incentives to them to refer quality candidates. 
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Talent Acquisition Strategy Framework
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Companies looking to expand into more skilled talent pools will have to enact innovative talent acquisition strategies to ensure that they are competitive players in their field. This may include changing up hiring strategies, considering new incentives for employees, and even reallocating budgets to ensure that top talent has the compensation that they need. Hiring top talent is more than simply a matter of wanting to have top talent on your team. If this is a goal for your company, there are a number of steps you’ll have to take to prepare to enter this new playing field. 

A talent acquisition strategy framework can give you a good place to begin. Top talent will not come looking for you, you will have to actively seek them out, so it’s important to first understand what they will be looking for. 

First of all, talent acquisition is the process of finding, engaging, and hiring candidates who have top skills in your field. Another aspect of this is finding people who fit your companies culture, seek similar goals, and agree with your values. One of the aspects of talent acquisition that often gets overlooked is the longevity of a team member after hire. If you want to hire talent that will stay, it’s important that you make sure that your new hire is the best fit for your company culture. 

As you develop your talent acquisition strategy framework, remember to hit on all of the most important points: 

- Analyze and assess any available data from your talent pool and your employees. This may include employee turnover rates, performance, skill gaps in your existing team, cost-per-hire data, etc. 

- Restructure your recruitment process to ensure that everything is flowing smoothly and best practices are being followed. Consider your current process and note where issues are arising. For example, are you finding great candidates but unable to keep them long-term? All of the issues that you encounter should be addressed. Some additions that may be made to the process at this point are: adding skills assessments if they are not already being conducted; or conducting a communication assessment to ensure that your candidate can communicate clearly and accurately with your team. 

- Utilize available technology to aid your processes. Recruiting tools, such a interview intelligence software like the program offered by Pillar, can provide you with incredible tools for recruiting that go beyond human capability. At the very least, such programs can provide recruiters and hiring managers with tools they can use for consistency from on interview to the next. 

Talent Acquisition Best Practices
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Acquiring the right talent requires more than good luck. Hard work is often involved in gathering the right skillsets with your new hires. When you are following talent acquisition best practices, you will begin to realize that this process is twofold. It is not just about attracting the right talent, but also about keeping them. So rather than developing a talent acquisition strategy, it might be helpful to think of it as a talent attraction and retention strategy. 
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Why is attracting talent important? When your company is able to catch the attention of skilled workers, you can rest assured that you’re doing something right. Qualified workers have greater pull with employers and can help to raise the bar with regard to the kinds of benefits and compensation offered. Top talent will be seeking employment with companies that value their employees, pay them adequately, offer benefits that are most important to the people who work there, etc. 

Some good ways to find top talent are:
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- Consider the people in your own network, whether they are people you’ve worked with or people who have worked with others who you trust. This can provide you with better people than you might find through cold recruitment. 

- Attempt to utilize recruitment marketing. Your marketing team has excellent strategies in place for making sales and attracting customers, why not allow them use some of those strategies to attract top talent as well?

- Advertise on appropriate job boards. Do your research and make sure you know where the right people are looking. For example, LinkedIn is a useful platform, but it may not be the place where people are looking for the best jobs for their field. Make sure you know what platform that is and advertise there as well. 

- Develop an onboarding strategy that works. Many companies try to automate onboarding to make it easier on their team, but it can also be frustrating for new hires if they aren’t receiving direct contact from team members or being given opportunities to ask questions and receive real-time guidance. Make sure to have open communication with new hires to ensure that the process is flowing smoothly for them. If it isn’t, be sure to address their concerns right away and for future hires. 

- Communicate and engage with your candidates from first interview all the way through onboarding. Your new hire needs to know that they made a good choice if you want to retain their talent, so it’s important to make sure that they feel welcomed and engaged with the team from day one. 
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Talent Acquisition Strategy Examples
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When it comes to developing your talent acquisition framework, the key is ensuring that you consider the main points to your strategy and follow them all closely. Your strategy can also be adjusted as needed to ensure that any areas that are not working well can be addressed. It can be helpful to do some research and look up talent acquisition strategy examples that can help serve your company’s needs. It can be extremely helpful to use your interview intelligence software to include important steps, from questions to ask to assessments to administer, to ensure that nothing is missed in the process. After you’ve developed your own strategy, you may even be able to share your own findings for those who are looking for talent acquisition analytics examples and want to understand best practices for their own hiring processes.